Note: I'm defining second generation as the generation that mainly joined in during/after Halo/COD came to be. The first generation would be Doom to Quake 3.

It's because of this second generation that it's so hard to introduce a game like Quake or even Unreal Tournament. It doesn't fit the mold they expect and so the game is broken. The movement system is too complex, the starting "loadouts" are too weak, I get dominated... they must be cheating.

Not every game should be designed so every player wins 50% of the time so they don't feel too bad about themselves.

It's this concept of trying to match people up so they win 50% of the time has kinda killed games for me. I'm from a time when if you wanted to get better you'd play against the players that dominated you. You'd play them again and again and you'd get better.

Now if I play a competitive mode of a game I can't play against players much better than me... so learning takes longer. It's an exhausting grind of very meaningless rewards.

So here it is... Second Generation you need to learn to tough it out. I'm sorry games of the past decade have held the hands of players and even worse designed their games to give everyone a "fair chance"... so much of a "fair chance" that it dilutes the challenge of the game

i noticed this about cs go a few months ago, when i dipped my toes back in after a friend asked me to play a few games.

the matchmaking has become so equalized that more often than not games run to > 25 rounds. as i understand, cs go mm skill is determined by the difference in rounds won more than individual performance, and so, at the time i played a bit, it seemed as though all the ranks were stagnating.

in a lot of games, players end up grinding, like you say. a year or so ago, a tie game was kind of a rush, because it wasn't as common as being definitively beaten or definitively winning. now it's like taking care of your fitness by running on a treadmill ever day. now, after so many monotonously similar rounds, it becomes an endurance race to see who can stay attentive enough to care about the game after 45 minutes.

it works, but you only really learn to run on the treadmill. there's nothing engaging or creative about it.

Well said! Glad I'm not the only one noticing this compromise we have to face with "better" matchmaking systems.

I kind of miss getting my butt kicked once and a while. You could at least take those loses as motivation to improve. Now if you get your butt kicked it's because someone is throwing/trolling/cheating/etc.

in something like cs go there are a lot of alternative options. i don't know about other games, but in cs go mm, setting criteria beyond map and people to join your queue isn't possible (or wasn't a few months ago when i played again).

but cs go does still have community servers, and stuff like retake servers at 120 tick are really fun and useful (basically terrorists spawn in various 'strategic' areas around a bomb site, and ct's spawn nearby to try to retake the site and defuse the bomb). and there are 120 tick competitive type servers and services, like faceit. i haven't played faceit in nearly 2 years, though. so i'm not sure if the quality of their matchmaking has changed. (edit: actually i think i did play a faceit match or two within the past year, but i honestly can't remember to say i'm 100% sure)

in matchmaking in chess, when I was a bit more active in that game I got paired 3/4 or 4/5 times against weaker players, so I basically needed to get a score higher than 4/5 to add rating points ... which is very very hard to achieve, because sometimes slips just happen, this always felt somewhat frustrating to me

I see but there is a big problem to this: the fact that at the time skill ceiling was not so high. Now with 20 years of practice our old games are almost untouchable for newer players. So back in the 90s we would play 5 hours/day for 5 months and get good. Now with the skill of the experienced players the newer generations must play 20/24 for 2-3 years to reduce the difference. Don't think that this is part of your plan of "get toucher, boys!"

My opinion stands. To be the top then and now takes a lot of time. That hasn't changed. I could easily form the argument that games have become so casual player focused that the skill ceiling has balanced out or worse lowered.

The second generation players I'm talking about are a result of their environment... as I am mine.

"To be the top then and now takes a lot of time. That hasn't changed"
Today champs also play 10 out of 24 hours. Well, at least they used to play till last dreamhack QL events. Add the experience of 20 years on top of daily practice for many hours a day and you almost become godlike for newer esport athletes, if I may call them so. And as we speak abt just getting good not abt becoming a pro then if this is true abt pros it is also valid regarding veteran players who are just very god but not pros.

I been there, maybe not tending to become one of the best in the world, and I complained in the past that medium value players (as I seen them at the time) would pose a greater problem to me than pros. This was somehow true because pros use their brain more than veteran players who just base their game on raw dodge+aim skills. I was good at it from time to time but not consistent because I lacked proper training, starting online training in 2008 and I already realized that I need to go 24/24 in order to get close the gap of 5 maybe 10 years to veteran players. I did that for a few weeks but then I realized very fast that I also want to have a life and so after abt 6 weeks I burned out. Talking abt "burning" why do you think ie that the newest QL sensation -burned -retired so early? You have no idea how much time QL ate from his life to get good. No wonder that he was "burned out" like someone mentioned on twitch (maybe rapha said that he burned out, don't recall exactly)

Point is that the "get tougher" advice is not relevant, maybe "get Godlike, sink your babies you father and your wife to play Quake all day" is a more proper advice.

I dont see that as so much of a problem per se ...
Changing the maps can make a lot of difference imho. ... so beginners can reach a lot with aim/movement ... there are still enough possibilities for new players to emerge ...

You still can go and play in tournaments or more skill diverse MM of other vendors like Faceit/ESEA. There is always a chance you will face stronger enemies in standard matchmaking. Imho close games are the most interesting ones. If I dominate it's zzz, if I got destroyed I'm angry that someone is abusing MM by smurfing (or in CS:GO case he might be cheating).

In Quake you can always jump into Faceit tournament or 125fps. There's no doubt sooner or later you will get your ass kicked hard. If the skill gap is too big there might be no lessons learned. Of course harder enemy may motivate you to step up your game, but imho it's not the thing improves your game in general. You should learn to improve and overcome your opponent at every skill level. Unless you are able to make your 50%/50% MM opponents change to 60%/40% to your advantage you don't deserve to rank up and face stronger players.

I disagree. I will say that I like many things that are similar, including being able to take control and own your opponent, being able to spawnrape, lock the map down, throw them out of the map, fly them with a rocket and pin them to a corner with LG. These are all great. But a matchmaking where nearly all players get 50% winrate or something approaching that is great. It's the way to get people hooked - let them play other newbies.

It's the expectation that you don't get owned vs a better opponent, or always get to land some shots and sometimes luck out vs them that is terrible. That you win 50% of games in matchmaking is great.

I remember waiting in RA3 queues for 2v2 TS back in the day, your reward was being King of the Hill for a few rounds. Those that had no hope had to watch better players and therefore may actually learn something of the game.

Nah, nothing to do with generations of shooters. It's the natural evolution of the gaming scene, people have higher standards now and don't just accept broken or unbalanced stuff as easily only because there's nothing else to play like in '97.

Matchmaking in games is only implemented and pushed to extreme cases like hearthstone etc.(where your deck gets scanned and you get paired with decks that tend to balance it out; ridicolous stuff) because the companies only see their products as literal money printers, so you have to keep the most people possible in your money printer and not let them go give their money to other money printers.

Also, you should consider that other games might just be more satisfying to play in general. Things like left 4 dead are enjoyable even whe you keep getting rekt. It's in the gunplay, exploding zombies, running from the tank, throwing molotovs, hoarding ammos, etc.

To expand on this, take PUBG, hizi and dayz: all extremely difficult and unforgiving games.

All huge successes.

In theory, "second generation(?!)" players should be avoiding those games like the plague.